May, 2008
Santa Fe, New Mexico
This Informal Research is focused on the origins of the Shambhala Teachings as outlined by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche in the 1987 publication.... "Shambhala, The Sacred path of the Warrior"...particular interests include: the Kingdom of Shang Shung which is located at the base of Mt Kailas, the dwelling place of Shiwa Okar and the 360 Werma Deities.....the Avestan traditions of pre-Islamic Iranian Central Asia....the Mitraic Lodge ceremonies of Pre-Christian Western Europe...and the Heart of the Sky God wearing Crystal......Sotuknang of the Hopi Tradition
"In one legend the flying shield is associated with Sotuknang, the Hopi sky god. A devastating flood had destroyed Palatkwapi—“the red city to the south,” possibly located in the red rock country near Sedona, Arizona. Shortly afterwards a boy named Tiwahongva and his sister Tawiayisnima, who were forgotten in the chaos and left behind by their fleeing parents, set out on a journey to find them. In the evening they decided to make camp. They were just opening their bundle for dinner when they heard a great roar overhead. The children were very frightened, wondering what this strange thing could be. The brother held his sister tightly to his breast as a fantastic being descended from the heavens. He was wearing a costume that glittered like ice (silver?) while his head and face shone like a star. He spoke: “Do not be afraid. My name is Sotuknang. Because of my sympathy for your plight, I have come to help you. Get on my paatuwvota and let us be on our way.”
He then took them on his flying shield up into the sky so that they could see for many miles around. Feeding the hungry children ripe melons, he told them that they must have faith in him and in his teachings that would later arrive through their dreams. Finally he landed a short distance from the village in which their mother and father had settled, bid the young ones farewell, and flew up again into the clouds. Forever grateful to the sky god, the brother and sister walked into the village to be reunited with their parents."
In the Shambhala tradition .. Shiwa Okar is the origin of the teachings and the essence of primordial reality.......In the Tibetan Bonpo tradtion, Shenlha Okar is the source of the Dzogchen lineages of Bon......According to Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, "Shiwa Okar and the Shenlha Okar are the same deity..."
This research explores ancient relationships...Shiwa Okar, 16 year old white deity wearing crystal armor and helmet.....Shenlha Okar, the brilliant white pure light being with body the essence of crystal "God of Gods" of the Tibetan Bon tradition.......Mithra, the pure white pre-Christian Europe/pre-Islam Persia, mounted Warrior Sky God whom the soldiers of ancient Roman worshipped in numerous Mithraeum of Western Europe.......and Sotunanga, the 'crystal ice faced' supreme god "Heart of the Sky" deity in the Hopi tradition...in 1974 Trungpa said that the pre-Buddhist Bonpo religion of Tibet was 'identical' with the Native American tradtions of the Southwest........
Shenlha Okar...... published practices, invocations and ceremonies in Tibetan/Shangshung Shamanism, Tantra and Dzogchen...... (Lha of Lha, God of Gods, Great God White Light...the peaceful "Shiwa'i" deity who is the "source of the teachings of the traditions of Dzogchen)...and the Nine Brothers and Sisters who created this world......
Shenlha Okar ("Great Lha White Light") ....is pure white...In the Bon tradition his ontological status is that of a bonku, 'unconditioned being' or 'supreme being', corresponding to the Buddhist category of dharmakaya...His association with light suggests Manichaean influences....The colour of his body is like the essence of crystal...his ornaments, attire, and palace are adorned by crystal light...".......
........."Shenlha Okar, the Bon deity who is the source of the lineage of teachings of the Dzogchen (rDzogs chen), the Great Perfection, in the lands of Lha, Nyen, and Lu". ....Kungtu Zangpo gave the teachings to Shenlha Okar who passed them to Shenrab Miwo who taught them in Zhang Zhung............From the white pure light arises the deity Shenlha Okar at the center of the mandala".........from a book by Lama Tenzin Wangyal
Click here for Notes on similarity of the KIVA of New Mexico and the MITHRAEUM of Europe
"In the shamanic world we talk about inviting the four guests......The first guests are the enlightened beings....we can invite for example, Shenlha Okar as an enlightened guest.......One's own master and yidam are in this category of First Guest.....This is the Shrine level....(Yidam examples: Shenlha Okar, Vajrakilaya, Meri, Vajrayogini, Sangchog Gyalpo, the Goddess Chamma...)...The other levels are not on the Shrine....#2 is Guest of Powerful Beings......not fully enlightened but can be close and are naturally very powerful....many different categories of the God realms....Shiva, etc.....Much more powerful than us in terms of mental ability, knowledge, speech and consciousness.....they can have "enlightened qualities" but are not fully enlightened.....in terms of healing you can invoke 1st and 2nd category of guests....They do not provoke too much......the #3 and #4 Guests can provoke sickness and cause other problems.....#3 Guest is the Karmic Guest..the #4 Guest is the Guest of Compassion...beings weaker and more helpless than you are......In the Shamanic world it is important to be generous rather than trying to get something......."(TW)
Click here For Table of Contents
Click here for Notes on SHENLHA OKAR and Five Elements Shamanism
Click here for Notes on SHENLHA OKAR and the transformative practices of Tantra
Click here for Notes on SHENLHA OKAR as the source of the Five Dzogchen Lineages
"In 1959, Chogyam Trungpa left Tibet, fleeing the invasion of the Chinese communists. It took him a long time to cross the Himalayas. On the way, he wrote a synthesis of the spiritual history of Shambala that was, unfortunately, lost during that eventful journey........it described Shiwa Okar and the Nine Lha who created existence out of non-existence.............In the Bon tradition the legend is known as Shen Lha Okar and the Nine Brothers who created this world.......
Click here to view the new Shiwa Okar Thangka
Click here For Notes on The Nine Lha
"Just to the west of Zhang-zhung there once existed the vast Kushana empire ....... an area in which Indian Buddhism and the Bon teachings interacted with various strands of the great Iranian and Central Asian religions-- Zoroastrian, Zurvanist, Mithraist, Manichean, as well as Indian Shaivism and Nestorian Christianity.......
SHINTO........."In the morning the sun comes up, thank you very much..... Sun comes down, thank you very much..... Shinto is not a religion. It requires no study or preservation, it is simply the way things are. Mistakes are natural, but they create impurities which must be washed away."........Dedication of the Shinto Shrine to the Japanese Sun Goddess at RMSC
" Jamgon Kongtrul the Great, one of the leading scholars of the nineteenth century who broke with Tibetan sectarian confinement and forged a deep understanding of rival philosophies in the Rimay Tradition........ With great courage, this brilliant practice/scholar compiled the basic teachings of all Tibetan Schools in his encyclopaedic work "The Five Great Treasures".
"The most significant Bon teacher in the Rimay movement.........Shardza Tashi Gyaltsen (1859-1935)..."HEART DROPS OF DHARMAKAYA.....Dzogchen Practice of the Bon Tradition".
"Those who have been fearless in their search and fearless in their proclamation belong to the lineage of master warriors, whatever their religion, philosophy, or creed...They are the fathers and mothers of Shambhala.".......Chogyam Trungpa (Final Paragraph in Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrioir)
This internet survey of PUBLISHED materials began in 1991 and explores the historical origins and sources of the teachings briefly outlined in the 1984 publication ..... "Shambhala, The Sacred Path of the Warrior".....
"In many indigenous traditions, we relate with the raw elements. Fire Pujas, Earth Ceremonies, rituals near springs, Sky and Space rituals.....Basically we are relating with the raw elements and their related spirit realms.....If you do not have a reference place when we talk about spirits, do a little dzogchen practive and feel spacious......Inviting the four guests......The shrine is basically the house of the enlightened first guest....such as Shen Lha Okar.,.....not really for the 2nd (Gods) , 3rd (Karmic Guests), or 4th (Guests of Compassion) Guests......
MANICHAEISM.........According to Mani the First-Man now emanates sons as a man who puts on his armor for the combat. These five sons are the five elements opposed to the five aeons of darkness: Clear Air, Refreshing Wind, Bright Light, Life-Giving Waters, and Warming Fire. He put on first the aerial breeze, then threw over himself light as a flaming mantle, and over this light a covering of water; he surrounded himself with gusts of wind, took light as his lance and shield, and cast himself downward toward the line of danger.
Tibetan Manichaeism........"In A.D. 1000 the Great Persian/Tajik historian Al-Beruni wrote: "The majority of the inhabitants of Tibet belong to the religion of Mani, the Buddha of Light"........ The recent finds of Manichæan literature and painting at Turfan corroborate this statement........Mani preached a very syncretistic religion that influenced Roman Christianity in Europe and the Native Bon Tradition in Tibet.......Om Mani Padme Hum?
The Shambhala Diet & the Manichaen Diet ........
Chogyam Trungpa...."NYIDA: The vegetarian diet of Shambhala. Nyi stands for yellow and green foods, primarily vegetables and fruits, and da for white foods such as milk, yogurt, cheese and tofu...."
One of the main principles of the ancient Silk Route Manichaeans was a vegetarian diet of mainly white, green and yellow foods. Supposedly, light was concentrated in these foods......
MANI....Mani is not a personal name but an honorific term such as Rinpoche, or Roshi......his family was from Ecbatana, a city of interest in the origin of the Shambhala legend..........His father's name was Fâtâk Bâbâk, a citizen of Ecbatana, the ancient Median capital ...... The boy was born A.D. 215-216
ECBATANA.(Hamadan)..(48E..35N)..."Ecbatana, a great circular city. Strong walls one within the other, seven in all and within the final circle on a hill was the royal palace (kal'ah, kala, kala.pa?). The highest and innermost wall was lined with gold. The next outer wall was lined with silver. The next wall was painted orange. The next blue. The next red. The next black. And the outermost and lowest wall was painted white. The king in the inner circle was seen by no one and all business was transacted by messengers." (Grene: "Herodotus History"..1987..pg 81)...Ecbatana was destroyed during the Moslem invasion of Sham in the 7th Century.... ......
(Jamgon Mipham Namgyal Gyatso).(1846-1912)..The Tibetan text: "The Lamp that Illuminates the Practice of the Miraculous Juthig of Existence" : interesting and clear descriptions of the Drala and Werma can be found in two passages from the monumental work on the Juthig divination. The first passage describes the 'Unicorn' Drala Seu Ruchig, one of the most important manifestations among Drala and Werma.Also information on Lha, Nyen, and Lu."
SHIWA OKAR is the main Shambhala deity...the "Lha of Lha".. "God of Gods"......(Shiwa'i Od'kar....Peaceful White Light)
SHENLHA OKAR In the Bon tradition........"The body of the Bon Deity....
Click here for Notes on Shiwa Okar and Shenlha Okar
"RIMAY TRADITION.... (Rime, Ris med) : "Jamgon Kongtrul The Great....(1813-1899) His background was Bonpo (his father was an illustrous lama of the Khyungpo, or Garuda clan..[Kongtrul: 1995..pg 15]) and both he and Jamyang Kyentse were particularly open to the Bon tradition. The most significant Bon teacher in the Rimay movement was Shardza Tashi Gyaltsen (1859-1935)..."HEART DROPS OF DHARMAKAYA.....Dzogchen Practice of the Bon Tradition". [Samuel:1993..p.542]....
"Since the second propagation on the Buddist doctrine in Tibet, in which teachings of non-Indian origin were dismissed, the ancient Nyingma teachings had been severely suppressed. Therefore the teachings of the Dzogchen system of the Nyingma [and Bonpo] traditions received the greater attention of the three great Rimay masters." (Kongtrul:1995..pg 28)..."The rimay movement began in Kham and leaned more to the shamanic and popular rather than to the centralized, clerical, heirarchical, and academic of the central Tibetan school. (Samuel: 1993..pg 543)..."
"Until the eighth century, the country of Zhang-zhung had been an independent kingdom with its own language and culture. It lay in what is now Western and Northern Tibet and the center of the country was dominated by the majestic presence of the sacred mountain of Mount Kailas........ Just to the west of Zhang-zhung there once existed the vast Kushana empire..... an area in which Indian Buddhism interacted with various strands of Iranian religion-- Zoroastrian, Zurvanist, Mithraist, Manichean, as well as Indian Shaivism and Nestorian Christianity. ...... All this suggests that certain trends within Bon actually do go back to a kind of syncretistic Indo-Iranian Buddhism that once flourished in the independent kingdom of Zhang-zhung before it was forcibly incorporated into the expanding Tibetan empire in the eighth century. This "Buddhism", known as gyer in the Zhang-zhung language and as bon in the Tibetan, was not particularly monastic........"
"We are working with iconography as a journey, rather than as entertainment or excitement or cultural fascination. We are talking about personal experience, how we actually see this world. There is a basic iconographic pattern in the universe, like the existence of the seasons and the elements, but how we react to that is individual.""....(Trungpa: Dharma Art.:1996...pg 94)
BASIC GOODNESS....."Küntu Zangpo is one of the peacful Bonpo deities, his name means "The All-Good" and he is seen as the supreme deity of all knowledge and has strong links to Shenla Okar in the sense that both are hierophanies of the bönku or "The body of Bon", the ultimate Truth..... Küntu Zangpo is Künzang Akor which means "The All-Good cycle of A", "A" being the last letter in the Zhan Zhung-alphabet ....the White A......Important Dzogchen Practice in the Bonpo Tradition"
"Texts that we commonly call the Shambhala teachings stem from the visions that the Druk Sakyong, the Vidyadhara Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, had from an early age in Tibet......These visions came from the Rigden and from Shiwa Okar......the Vidyadhara often said that he was merely writing them down...." Sakyong Mipham......Public Letter....January 23, 2005
Click here for notes on Sol Invictus, Shiwa Okar, Mithra, and The Great Eastern Sun
"The Rigdens other than Rigden Raudrachakrin are of the Asura family because of bestowing fear. If one thinks this explanation is not suitable, Palden Raudrachakrin having a short spear bestows fear in the asura family. So it is taught. "
Click here Notes on various Ancient Tibetan Lineages of Dzogchen
Salvation is a foreign idea in Shinto...When you look into the mirror you know who you are more deeply. Knowing is important. Deeper knowledge is important." (Yamamoto Negi of the Tsubaki Grand Shrine at RMSC in 1992)...."In Shinto, the ceremonies connecting with summoning anew the spirit of a deity are called 'chinza-sai'. They are usually ceremonies of mysterious grandeur carried on with the utmost solemnity during the darkness."...(Jinja: 1958...pg
In the Kalachakra text's list of Prophets we find mention of the "White-Clad One", probably referring to Mani. Buddhists believe that Buddha himself gave this Root Kalachakra Tantra in the ninth century B.C. and that the First Kalki King of Shambhala wrote The Abridged Kalachakra Tantra in the second century B.C. The Kalachakra Tantra appeared in India in the late tenth century and was probably written about this time. It predicts the coming of an Islamic Messiah figure named Mahdi about 2424 AD.
Click here for notes on Kalachakra and Islam
The Turkic Ghaznavids conquered Kabul in the 980s. It was at about this time that the Kalachakra teachings openly appeared in India, transmitted in visions to two Indian masters attempting to reach Shambhala. Although the Muslim Ghaznavids tolerated Buddhism and Hinduism in Kabul, they smashed the Ismaili Islamic state of Multan in north central Pakistan in 1008. The Ismaili Fatimids in Egypt were the rivals of the Ghaznavids for supremacy over the entire Muslim world. After this victory, the Ghaznavad ruler Mahmud of Ghazni, driven undoubtedly by greed for more land and wealth, pressed his invasion further eastward as far as Madhura, south of Delhi. He looted and destroyed the wealthy Buddhist monasteries that lay in his path. When the Ghaznavad troops pushed northward from Delhi, however, and tried to invade Kashmir, the Kashmiri King Samgrama Raja, a supporter of both Buddhism and Hinduism, defeated them in 1021. This was the first attack on Kashmir by a Muslim army. The Kalachakra Tantra reached Tibet from Kashmir in 1027, the year predicted by the First Kalki.
"SHAMBHALA...."In 624 AD, a Moslem invasion weakened the Kingdom of Shambhala."(Roerich: 1974..pg 753) (Geoffrey Hopkins: 1985..pg 60)
In 624 AD the Sassian Shah Yazdigird is defeated by the Arabs at the battle of Nahavand....."in the era of the Mlecchas, the starting year of the Kalacakra chronology is the first year of the Hijra, calculated from the year 624 AD."..(Roerich:1949...pg 753)....
ZHIDAG....."Tibetan Buddhists believe that there are countless types of beings other than humans and animals. Some are more powerful, happier, and more intelligent than humans, and others less so. Usually if there is no common karma or karmic connection, beings of different types will not encounter each other. Spirits are not necessarily births of the ancestors from a particular locality, but may have come from any kind of birth or realm." (Hidden Teachings of Tibet)
FRAVASHIS......"A class of higher intelligence that are ancient Persian guardian warrior spirits. The 19th day of every month is consecrated to them. King Phraortes' (647 BC) Persian name is derived from the term."(Dhalla:1963..pg 235)..... "Hence Finite Time and Finite Space control man's destiny from the cradle to the grave. Yet the whole of the macrocosm is kept in being by the Fravashis (Dralas ??), the spiritual powers that are indissolubly linked with each human being and with humanity as a whole. Finite time-space, then, is not a kenoma, an empty nothingness, but a pleroma, a 'full' and vital organism...."...(Zaehner..1961..pg 150)...
Click here
Tibetan Uighur Manicheans, Bon, and the Shambhala Connection.....Shenrab, Mithra, and Mani
Click here For Thangka of the Bon Peaceful Deity - Shiwa'i Lhatsog
The Following Published Texts Are Worth Looking Into:
Chogyam Trungpa..."Shambhala, The Sacred Path of the Warrior"...1984........ outline and summary of Secular Terma teachings from 1979-1984....
Campell, Leroy A......"Mithraic Iconography and Ideology"....Leiden:1968......Persian and Avestan Language sources........Amazing description of how ancient languages actually began to approach reality.....
Norbu, Namkhai "Drung, Deu, and Bon: Narrations, Symbolic languages, and the Bon traditions in ancient Tibet"... 1995.......rare descriptions of the Drala and Werma deities... translation of important Bon Texts...